001in the boardroom around our equity work and so uh i will i'll read it this time and we'll have a on a rotating basis uh board members read off this statement to ensure that we're entering into our meetings uh with the right frame of focus and centering our students um and and their education so the statement is that each student has access to the resources and educational rigor they need at the right moment in their education regardless of race gender ethnicity ability language family background or family income i think we need i think that's the board meeting agenda i think we want to be on the board workshop okay thank you for that i appreciate that [Music] i am i've got the wrong agenda just give me a moment here okay uh well we can
002do that twice there's no problem multiple times okay so we're going to start off with our board workshop and we're going to be interviewing and voting to fill the vacant board seat first before we proceed with the interviews we'll cover process which has been distributed to all board members but i'll cover it briefly and we can answer any questions we will start with the overview which we're doing now from 5 to 5 15 at 5 15 nicole baffidari will interview at 5 30 we will interview john grummel the interviews are to be conducted in open session and there is a list of standard questions that we will each ask i'll start with question one and then we'll do clockwise there are six questions for so one for each board member we should have enough time
003to ask additional questions but we will allow that once we move through these standard questions and every board member is is welcome and encouraged to ask any questions that you may have after the interviews we will deliberate in open session unless there are some extenuating circumstances that would necessitate a closed conversation i had not been notified that there are any circumstances that would require that so we'll be deliberating an open session after we discuss the candidates we will then take a vote to appoint the new member the way that we are going to be proceeding with voting is that you have all been provided with a ballot you will write your name down and then the candidate that you are voting for and then i will read on the tally in the case of a
004tie we will revote and we'll just proceed with that same process until we have a majority vote to appoint a candidate i think that that covers most of the guidelines are there any questions or anything i missed meredith no i think that sounds good i have extra ballots but i'm feeling very optimistic that we are going to be through this the bad ties we'll see not good excellent um any questions from the board otherwise we've got some time before our first interview yeah so um let me make sure i think is that nicole come on in welcome come on down here i'm like still just nervous enough about the technology that i assume that i'm always wrong i'm in the right place hey everybody how's it going it's nice to see you in the first
005place [Laughter] in real life welcome thank you all right so i can briefly cover the process i will give you a few minutes to introduce yourself and then we'll run through a list of standard questions and then as we have time beyond those questions i'll open it up for board members to ask other questions it will last about 15 minutes and then we will interview the other candidate john gremle and then at 5 30 the board will begin to deliberate and we'll make the appointment tonight and swear in uh the candidate that has been selected you have any questions before we before we start i'm ready let's go excellent excellent all right well i'll give you a chance to to briefly introduce yourself before we jump into questions sure thank you and thank you so
006much for the opportunity i really appreciate it um my name is nicole vaffadari i know some of you um most of you actually um so my family and i um relocated to fitchburg about three years ago and we were looking for a place to raise our two children one children one child at the time um and we felt very strongly about being in the verona area school district and so um when the uh board position opened um a few months ago when was that a few months ago yeah um i felt very strongly about running for that seat i lost out to three amazing humans that you see here um and throughout that entire process it was actually like one of the most positive losses i've ever experienced in my life because i just got
007to talk with awesome people about how to make the lives of our children and teachers and support staff that much better and so as a daughter of an educator i feel very strongly about the importance of education as the daughter of an immigrant i also feel very strongly about investing in one's community and then as a mother i feel super strongly about not only making sure this school district maintains its excellence for my children but also for the children around me i feel very strongly i've volunteered with the boys and girls club i've been an esl tutor to children and parents and so just with a lot of that i found this an amazing opportunity to be able to serve my community and serve people around me and maybe bring an outside perspective of a
008newer parent having children ages three years and nine months um kind of at the other side of the spectrum and really um putting the hours and the sweat equity where my words are and really getting that opportunity to serve those around me so i'm also sorry what i do for my day job i am the senior director of it applications at healthgrades um so i manage a team of developers and business analysts and we implement healthcare technology so a lot of fun stuff every day pretty much excellent well thank you very much and i think you may have covered the answer this question but i'll try and phrase it a way that maybe we'll give you um an opportunity to address it more directly there are a lot of ways that you can get involved
009in your community and what in particular motivated you to apply to the va st board of education sure um i think one of the things that um growing up i grew up in texas and um i grew up in an area where it was very well known that if you wanted a good education you paid for private school and i attended private school and then i moved to michigan and we had access to amazing public schooling and so i want that for my children but i also want to provide that and fight for that for the children in the community in which i live i feel it is extremely important as a person who has the means to make sure that all children have access to excellent education and so um i think that was
010that was an area of interest and also um i have pretty thick skin and when i was first going door-to-door to collect signatures i told someone i was running for the school board and he said um thank you that's the only time you will hear that and so he said prepare yourself it's an english job filled with lots of service and i feel like i'm well equipped to do that excellent thank you very much jen would you read question two please i will thank you nicole if appointed to this board seat in what ways would you support the strategic plan yeah so i think there there are kind of key focus areas to look at um the first one and clearly top of mind of most parents is kind of you know covid isn't gone
011for children under the age of 12. covet isn't gone for anybody um but i think really addressing those concerns and hearing from parents and children and making sure that we are addressing everybody's needs and in a way that benefits everyone with equity i think that's that's a key importance factor and then i think the other thing is just continuing to really dig in and understand and pay attention to the budget and where we're spending our dollars i think there's a lot of a lot of great ideas um that come up and then you look at the dollars and cents and you have to figure out how that works um i manage a team of developers where we have to meet profit margins and clients who have strategic initiatives and we have to manage project budgets
012um and ensure you know quality and volumes are appropriate and so i think that's another kind of outside perspective that i believe i could bring is an understanding and thoughtfulness to the budget and how to support all the important line items on that thank you one second i cannot multitask at all no worries we're not in a rush okay question three what is your understanding of the role of an individual board member in a school district that's a great question so um i think the the first um role of a board member is to partner with support and keep in check um the superintendent so dr clardy making sure that we're really partnering with you and giving you an outside perspective that you might need in in regards to how to support the parents and
013staff and students of the school district so i think that's one key area um and just making sure that all of the voices are heard um in that relationship um i think the second thing is also just taking a really thoughtful approach things like the budget and where dollars are being spent i feel very strongly that sentiments and best laid plans need to be backed by appropriate funding and so that's something that bringing a kenai especially to areas to make sure that money is being spent in an equitable way but also in the best way i think during one of the conversations that we had during the election this idea of you know too many initiatives being brought up and really focusing our attention and drive there and i think that's the other thing of
014taking many well-intentioned ideas and focusing and taking inputs from various people and saying where does where do we get the most bang for our buck and where can we focus and make some change thank you john question four sure so um one of the pillars of our strategic plan is the equitable allocation of resources i mean you've talked about that um in your answer so far what does that mean to you more specifically the equitable aspect yeah i think equity um is is much more difficult than equality in the fact that it involves looking at the gray and looking at the different the different effects and different needs being brought to the table and making sure i'm not funding each thing equally but rather funding the right things to the appropriate level again i think
015a big part is you know not half funding something or not doing it just to say that you've done it but actually saying is this funded to the appropriate level um but i think the other thing is also investing the time and making sure that those initiatives are successful making sure that the funding is being used properly and really looking and saying you know what do some of our students need to be successful and acknowledging that's very different than maybe their peers i have a brother who had special education needs that was very different he needed different support than i needed you know speech therapy things like that so i think it takes a really keen um and thoughtful eye and someone who's willing to dig into the details in order to achieve that equity
016thank you very much christina question five what do you believe is currently the greatest area of need for the brown area school district um i think the the greatest area of need is um probably with kids coming back from from this past year trying to reinstill um a new sense of normal i wouldn't say the old sense of normal because i think many of you spoke to this in different forms as well but the old sense of normal wasn't really working um it wasn't really equitable for everyone um and i think we also learned some amazing adaptable things kobit forced us to be quite creative and so um i think it is um you know put upon us to make sure that um you know we say every student must be successful i think that's
017more crucial now than ever and making sure that specific students aren't being left behind and making sure that all students feel safe in their return to school and parents feel supported in that as well so i think that's probably the biggest challenge at this point and of course making those difficult budget decisions to figure out how to do so thank you very much meredith so this kind of goes i think a little bit to your new sense of normal what additional action should the board of education take to address gaps in equity i think um that's a great question i think one of the things that the board should do is is start and continue with listening i think it's a huge part to listen to those who are heading specific initiatives um teachers who
018are involved in the school support staff who are involved in the school and ensure that you know we understand what's working what's not what are we not doing that we should be doing um i think a really important focus should also be on mental health i know just from my own kids i didn't give enough credit to how much a three-year-old could be impacted um by covid um and my biggest negative impact was not successful potty training which we can all get over eventually um but fingers crossed someday um but i think that's you know these could have huge impacts on our kids and so i do think really investing in mental health and support for not only students but also families and making sure that that's really accommodated for is one example of of
019what we should look at as far as equity because i think while there's also a disparity to things like access food security there's also quite a bit of disparity when you look at communities of color or communities of different economic advantage and mental health in that area thank you very much we have about five minutes left so i'll open up to the board for other questions no i had a question that i will ask both candidates so you're first so fitchburg has been a focal point in our district for some time we're seeking ways to bridge the gap in community between fitchburg and verona so how would you or what would you bring to the board as it relates to this disconnect and merging that yeah that's a that's a great question um i am
020i'm a little obsessed with my um community um i live in uh the seminole forest neighborhood and i've never felt such a tight tie to those around me um i've already felt like um people in the cul-de-sac across from me maybe co-parent my children i don't know i feel like we all live in this co-parenting situation um but uh you know they already weigh in on hey this is where my kid goes to school or hey these are the different benefits and values um i do think there needs to be you know within fitchburg there's quite a bit of diversity economic diversity as well and i think one key area to do is partner with local organizations to make sure that we're reaching out to communities so for example the boys and girls club has
021a great location on ally drive that i've volunteered at in this right in the middle of fitchburg and so being able to partner with various communities like that being able to partner with little john's kitchen things like that but then i think also just kind of having community engagement days and figuring out what parents need in order to feel engaged um and how to draw them in because i also have quite a few members who have chosen to go to private schools and i find myself questioning wow we live in a really great school district why is that your choice we have so many options and so i'd love to get to the heart of that and then engage with the community and understand you know why that decision was made and is there anything
022that we can do to kind of bring those families into the fold so i think there's a couple different aspects and different ways that we could engage with the community but i think the smartest way would be to leverage organizations that are already invested in the community as well thank you other questions from the board i have one um so i'm curious you know as we're appointing a new board member i'm looking for somebody what what new or unrepresented voice will you bring to the existing board table absolutely um so i think i bring a couple areas of difference in aspect um number one i think being a younger parent is kind of a little bit of a different voice my kids are just starting out they're actually not even in verona schools quite yet
023um and so i think there's that level of investment and perspective of how to reach out to new parents and get them involved in the school board it might seem like old hat to parents who've had kids already in the community it's not very obvious to those of us joining um and so i think that's one way i think the other way is um being a young female professional with an i.t um i think i feel very strong i don't think i feel very strongly about um investment in stem education i feel very strongly about preparing our youth i know when we were interviewed by 100 black men of madison i believe three of the four students were interested in i.t careers i feel super strongly about mentoring i've mentored through the wisconsin women's network
024and so i think that is an another perspective of you know not every child's path is going to be through college that's not what for four-year college might not look like success to everybody to your technical school might be success trade school might be success and so i think when we look at what does success look like for every student um bringing that kind of diversity and understanding of where careers could take students is something i feel super passionately about thank you i appreciate it we've got one minute left so are there any last questions from the board oh we've already grilled you apparently yeah is that do you have any closing thoughts that you'd like to share we have one minute so no i mean thank you so much for the opportunity i just
025want to tell you all you're doing a fabulous job um being being engaged and watching the board meetings and watching all the thoughtful discussion that goes into it i think i've told every my neighbors are so annoyed with me they're like okay we get it the school board is is a hard work but all the thoughtful conversations i just want to thank you all say thank you because i know you don't get it enough but thank you for the time that you put into things um because it is very appreciated by everybody well thank you and we certainly are are grateful and appreciative of your interest in serving on the board um not only uh your uh um uh run uh in your campaign this last spring but also your interest in this appointment uh
026so sincerely appreciate that if anyone needs some extra flyers for like fans like a thousand at my house so you just call me up thank you thank you very much thank you i appreciate it and i think rachelle just wanted to check to see if our other candidate is here feel free to take a few minute recess and i'll come grab you when you're ready for the next interview okay is he outside yes feel free to bring him down if you go out both doors to the bank and take a left and kind of go it'll be on your right-hand side [Music] and i'm like i don't wonder if this is quiet enough for me to like use it on my legs while i'm sitting here hey let me say thank you to whoever got
027me capital letters on my side oh you didn't happen before i finally feel like i'm one of your fears did we [Music] so crazy hey come on up yeah feel free to join us we're here next to john well done i won't tell him that welcome how are you doing good good excellent well my name is noah roberts and i serve as president of the the school board um uh just briefly outline uh the process here and then see if you have any questions before we jump into it we'll give you a few minutes to introduce yourself and then we'll run through a standard list of of six questions and if we have time i'll open up to the board for additional questions following your interview which i'll set a timer and we'll set it
028for 15 minutes the board will deliberate and and make an appointment tonight and swear in the the new member uh this evening any questions before we begin okay just to make sure that the people on our live stream yes yes a reminder for all board members to speak into your microphone i know it's sometimes hard to forget when we're the only people in this large room but uh for the for the benefit of the folks watching online please speak into the microphone it used to zoom you know where you can see each other and uh where's the mute button we're always muted when we talk there's no mute button here there's no mute that's terrifying any questions john before we begin no that's what was explained to me in the email they were all very
029informative so excellent well feel free to take it away all right um i'm oh i'm dr john grommel i don't always say doctor i get used to my students just calling me john sometimes they do not like mister all the time though i'm a professor of political science uh at upper iowa university although we have a center in madison you're probably driven by it they're going to move but i do mainly online teaching with the master of public administration so that's kind of some background on me i've studied all sorts of aspects of which education policy is one of them with regards to what i've done here recently i have two daughters both at country view right up the road both are autistic and so i've really gotten to know all the special needs all
030the special needs staff and faculty not only at country view but for uh summer school this year that's been fun because they're switching caseworkers they're in first and third grade and when my uh oldest started in kindergarten or first grade i became part of the parent advisory council on special needs wonderful group of people to work with and then covet kind of hit as we were getting ready to move forward with some stuff and so i wasn't sure where that was going and so that's part of the impetus for when i saw this available from our rep in verona joe i can never remember his last name i'm just so used to calling him joe he sent out information said hey there's a seat open i'm like oh i never have time to even think
031about running for election until after they've announced oh there's an election so i thought i would uh give it a shot because i am interested in in what's going on in the schools and having two kids in the verona school district which i every year i appreciate more and more what they've done even though my experience is limited really to country view uh wonderful staff there so i i'm assuming i'm going to generalize and say that everyone working with the veroni area school district uh is wonderful well they on the pre on the parent council the folks i work with there they've all been just great people to work with so so that's why excellent thank you very much i'll start with uh the first question which i think you've touched on a little bit
032but if you could more specifically discuss what motivated you to apply for for the seat on the board of education uh two things one i've already touched on uh having worked with the parent advisory council special needs i'm also the chair of my own university's diversity inclusion committee we're looking at changing our name to inclusivity diversity what is idea i know but that work there and understanding the importance of diversity i was even asking before covet hit i was i've i'd heard that the high school had a a group and they might have an advisory council for parents so i've been looking into that as well but mainly just being able to work with kids before they get to the level i teach at i think is extremely important um and since i'm not teaching
033there but being able to have even some indirect impact on on the lives of kids these days i try in my way so thank you very much uh question two jen hi john uh if appointed to the board seat i think i need bifocals this is really driving me crazy okay i've appointed to this board seat in what ways would you support the strategic plan could you repeat the first i got you best i got strategic plan and there was something just before that i missed it in what ways would you support the strategic plan if appointed to the board that's a good question i read the minutes and i read the notes and i read the agenda and i have skimmed the strategic but only parts of it so that's a difficult question because
034i have i like i said my experiences with country view and so i always my experience there is limited i wanted to be able to say it had time to join the pta and i did kind of the first year and then i didn't um i would do whatever i could to support it because i know just based on my girls education that whatever they're doing i approve of them doing it i know with some of the building i know more about building the high school and i get everything and i fall out but now the high school's built so i wish i could say more on that but i have not i barely have read my own university strategic plan they're very technical and i helped write part thank you yana question three sure
035hi john what is your understanding of the role of an individual board member in a school district to oversee um well when i think of board members i think that they they are in charge of like they have fiduciary responsibility uh but also i've noticed that boards have had a larger amount with regards to curricular responsibility to some extent but that could vary depending on the state i know in some states they have a lot of power in those areas individual school districts i'm not sure how much it is here but i know with regards to the fiduciary responsibility i know that's usually what i hear from school boards it's you know making sure they don't spend too much money or let's build something nice and pretty like the high school things like that thank
036you thank you uh question four john so uh one of the pillars i've got to follow our rules here one of the pillars of our strategic plan is the equitable allocation of resources what specifically does that mean to you equitable what that means to me is that all students in some way shape or form receive benefits of some kind and services not necessarily equal for example i know summer school has been fun because like my youngest daughter i'm not having her go to summer school while she was on a wait list but it's difficult it would have been difficult to send her because she would not have received a one-on-one aide and to me that's not exactly equitable because she basically is kept out of summer school because she needs a one-on-one eight she will
037get up she would get off the van and just wander right off you know whatever's near badger ridge elementary school she'd go explore it and never make it into class whether or not there are students the pandemic really highlighted those students who may not have had reliable internet service and so equitable would be allowing them to experience the education get their education despite gaps in in resources due to whatever reason that might be i could go on and on about this question since being the chair of a committee that deals with this and it's something i try to remind people of all the time so i could go on it but i know i only have three more two or three more questions and then follow-ups in 15 minutes that's probably already going by faster
038than i know well thank you christina question five what do you believe is currently the greatest area of need for the verona area school district that's tough because i i'm happy with the way my students learn stuff so trying to think what they could do better uh is is i don't i don't know if need is the right word for me right now because when i i like what i see at least at the elementary school level and so anything they're doing i'd like to see them do more of uh you know depending on resources and i'm sure in part that has to do with the people that are being hired and and that have been working for the school so uh it's i know it's tough to always have good teachers good support staff
039good administrators and that might not be the biggest need but it helps make meeting other needs easier when you have good people in place so anything to do to get the best people and attract good people i think is important there i just think my experience is too limited to just be one school to to think of something that the school district itself might need thank you meredith question six uh this kind of ties into some things that you've already touched on so um but what additional actions should the board um of education be taking to address um gas and equity and equity in any in any ways that you see my experience is is limited but impacts me grateful greatly with regards to the service for special needs i know they're doing a lot
040i have no complaints about my case workers at all they have been so helpful and the school itself like i said i'm limited to country view but uh the new principal i had a chance to meet her when she first started uh she was doing did a thing right actually down the street from us they had a little meet and greet thing from where we live and i got to spend about 15 minutes talking to her and then a number of of the staff some have been promoted and or retired this year but all very helpful but i know even from talking from them that there are issues that need to be addressed there um same thing with uh you know resources are going to vary depending on where people live in the community and
041verona seems like it could is a relatively well-to-do school district but you're still going to have gaps there and so anything they can do in those areas i think the it's not always addressed we sometimes forget if we have it if we're doing well we don't think that others might not and so i think putting our thinking about if we can bring up the students that are that are having the most trouble due to resources not necessarily because i assume students if you get them in a good learning environment they will learn because the environment's important but if you're focused on helping them it helps everyone yeah so that's thank you yeah i'm going to stop there because i could go on i got a little passion about helping the folks at the bottom move
042up thank you very much well we have about five minutes left so i'll open up to the board for additional questions all right i'll ask mine first everybody's looking at me reason being john i said that i was going to ask this question to both candidates so that's why everybody's looking at me all right so fitchburg has been a focal point in our district for some time we've been seeking ways to bridge the gap in community between fitchburg and verona how would you or what would you bring to the board as it relates to this disconnect and merging not exactly sure where the disc well fitchburg is a little when i think of fitchburg i think of a dive it's kind of diverse but i also think of verona as being diverse so i i'm
043not knowing exactly where the disconnect is i certainly want to try to figure out what that is and understand it better and try to do what could be done to bring those communities i'm guessing there's some disconnect given that there is a little bit of a boundary with the geographical difference you know we're in fitchburg sometimes we feel a little far away oh i mean it might have something to do with that too but i've never been i don't think i've ever felt unwelcome about anything there so i'm not sure what the disconnect is exactly but i'd certainly look into it i know there seems to be differences in some of the the neighborhoods too that is served by the verona area school district and that might be where some of the disconnect is so
044community outreach sometimes can be quite helpful i'm kind of guessing at that i'll admit it i'm just trying to think in my head about where i live and where i go walking in fitchburg and how it might be different from when i drive around from that stuff um so as we're appointing somebody we're looking for to make sure that we have voices that are representative of our district um and so what unrepresented unrepresented perspective would you be able to bring to the board if you were appointed well i represent my daughters because one is one can't really talk being on it's mainly in the special needs area i also do a lot of work i do um research and um and am somewhat involved mainly through the research i do but also at my university
045we're working on ally training and updating that because i've been involved off and on in the lgbtq community more than just part of it but actually doing work and i do research with regards to treatment of lgbtq in health care trying to find ways that they're they're accounted for in in needs assessment health and health care so those two thank you old people no i don't feel old but still we've got about two minutes left other questions from the board i'll ask something yeah so um this is a unique way of becoming a board member being appointed and i'm just wondering what your thoughts are about running because obviously this is to fill out the remainder of a board member's term that would eventually result in having to decide whether to run or not in
046a regular life yeah i'll admit i felt like i'm kind of cheating because it's an open seat right now with someone stepping down and it's not an election and i i have thought about running at various times in the past i even thought i thought about here a little bit earlier because we've lived in in verona now for four years and my daughter started kim my oldest started kindergarten and hoping to get to the five-year mark so which will be getting close when they have elections next so i was hoping to reach about five years because then you get to know a little bit more and get involved you learn more with things going on in the school i still feel like i'm just still learning i'm but i'm so focused in one small area
047with everything my my two girls need but yeah i thought about it in the past but i i wanted to live somewhere long enough that i felt that someone was just an insider coming in we're getting close to that but i did read that now the uh announcement for the open scene it's a little earlier than i want i kind of feel like i'm cheating you know we're kind of just moving it's easier than running certainly that takes more time and i i did read all the stuff for the folks who had the little um something in the newspaper and i got to read all your statements before the last election the five of you who were in there so it's actually very helpful so it gave me some insight too about that process and
048what's involved too so did that answer your question in part well i yeah i was curious because i like you said it is a unique way a different way yeah yeah no i recognized interesting to know whether people have considered the prospect of running in a regular election yeah not quite yet but i did i you know for the reason excellent i think that we have hit our time limit but i'll give you if you 30 seconds if you have any closing thoughts statement other than i just want to i guess it's a unique situation here and i just wanted to thank you all for the opportunity to come in here and have 15 minutes my 15 minutes of of time on the board without a mute button um it's nice meeting all of you
049and maybe um you know see well thank you very much thank you thank you thank you you're welcome to sit anywhere amongst the the uh theater here thank you thank you all right so let's see we're gonna start our next meeting a little bit late and that's okay but we'll move into our deliberation portion um before we kick it off just a reminder that board members will be asked to vote on their ballot you'll put your name on the ballot and then uh the name of the individual that you'll be voting for and i will read those ballots off um and it will not be a secret ballot so i will read your name and then the vote and before we start our deliberation i just want to again thank both of our candidates who
050have applied i think and this is true for nearly every every time we've appointed a board member that we have fantastic uh community members who have thrown their hat in the ring and so i certainly appreciate uh both uh cole and john um uh and their courage to put their name uh into consideration uh i particularly appreciate um uh nicole's vigor and her uh previous run i think that shows a strong commitment to our district and and absolutely appreciate john's service and advisory council so i think that both candidates have uh perspectives uh and and passions that i think would would serve us well so i'll open it up for thoughts from the board on the appointment well i'll echo this the same i think we have such excellent candidates that were willing to even
051be considered for appointment so i appreciate both nicole and john putting their name in the hat even to um to put themselves out here and also i would also agree with noah just this is a difficult process when you have no wrong answers so i am very grateful for for our appointment our appointees our interviewees um i think as a board member when we're going through the appointment process i'm looking to find somebody who will bring that unrepresented voice to the table and in this case i think they that both nicola and john do have um aspects that they bring to the table i think this highlights that we need to have a closer liaison with the um our special needs community um and i think that is something that we have i have learned
052from this process um i think this is a tricky decision this is very hard thank you for making it difficult to our interviewees any other thoughts i just want to say thanks for the additional questions that the few of you asked being a new board member i thought the questions helped me a lot and just to offer the perspectives that you all have having served in the role longer so thank you for that additional information that really has helped me start to process my decision so thank you i would just like to echo um something that john said that um you know this is a special circumstance and um yeah it was certainly a lot easier to lose to kellyanna the first time losing to her the second time took a lot more work in
053the actual election um took a lot more work on my part too john just just so everyone knows um but over the course of the election like i had you know be a lot more rigorous in thinking about the issues faces to face the district and i had to be a lot more sure about my ability to commit my time to do the work up here and those are those are two things that i'm very grateful for as we embark on some work that is going to take a lot more time and rigor um that's very much at the forefront of my mind you know and kind of thinking about this so i'm just throwing that out that's just a comment thinking out loud not that i'm keeping score i i you know i would
054say to as someone who was appointed and then had to run shortly thereafter the time goes quick between now and april and preparing um but you know even with with being appointed um one of the things that you know as we think about who we're who we're selecting making decisions starts immediately i think i was appointed sworn in and made like a 18 million dollar decision within five minutes um so it just happens really quick so you know to whoever we do decide to to select for this appointment just be prepared to hit the ground running because you don't have the same amount of time to kind of prep as you would if you were preparing to run and then running a campaign and kind of waiting that out so um it's going to be
055some sleepless nights after tonight but you know it's definitely rewarding like i said i was appointed and then decided to continue and to run for a seat on the board so lots of fun work great work but work nonetheless excellent well thank you all for your comments and and i think before we move into the ballot portion um i'm going to explain how i'm going to vote and not every board member has to but you're certainly welcome to um as i said before i think we have two fantastic candidates and can't go wrong but i think the the thing that that um is is tipping tipping it over for me is is that nicole has shown some some commitment for some time and running for a seat and i certainly appreciate those who have gone
056through that process because it is arduous and you do have to put yourself out there and you speak to a lot of people and learn a lot of different perspectives so i think that that i'll be i'll be voting for nicole for that reason that i just sincerely appreciate those who who have decided to run because it is a challenging process but again we have two fantastic candidates and and i sincerely appreciate them putting their their hat in the ring so with that i'll open up if there are other last comments before we do our ballot vote otherwise feel free to cast your vote and you can pass it along to me and i'll read those out intelligent no i'm just gonna ditto what you said i'm similarly voting for nicole but i want to
057thank both of our candidates today for their positivity i think what impressed me so much is that they have really strong appreciation for our staff and for the work of our school district and um want to support that with their own you know time and energy and again as you said i will be supporting nicole because i know the time and energy it took for her to run and i was impressed with that time and energy that she put in but again i think it's wonderful to have two people who both really value what the school district means for our students and are willing to put their own personal energy into helping that effort absolutely thank you if there aren't any other additional comments feel free to pass along your ballot thanks all right i'll
058start with myself uh i casted my vote for nicole we will vote from jana for nicole we will vote from jen for nicole and we vote from meredith for nicole vote from john for nicole and a vote from christina for nicole so nicole vafadari has been appointed by the board to fill the vacant seat and again i want to thank both nicole and john for their their interest in the seat and there are elections every spring and i think that that every board member we all like to call attention to uh the opportunities that happen each year there are usually multiple seats open every spring so i sincerely appreciate the interest in this seat and encourage people to consider running in the future but with that that concludes our board workshop i wanted to add
059just one thing and i wanted to say you know thank you also to dr grumble for coming and interviewing and i think that this really highlights a need for the board to be working in liaising with the special education parents group to make sure that we are hearing all perspectives and i would hope that dr crumble would be able to serve as a liaison in that type of capacity as we move forward absolutely and i i have utmost appreciation for your service on on the advisory council and there will be multiple open seats in this next election and i certainly encourage you to to run i appreciate your service to our district thus far all right any other comments from the board before we move from our workshop to our regular board meeting all right
060hearing none we're going to shift over to our regular agenda i'm going to do i need yes nicole please feel free to join us here at the table i'm going to call this regular meeting to order has the media man probably notice christina yes it has okay thank you very much [Music] and i know that i i read the statement earlier but i'm going to do it again to emphasize uh how important it is for us to continue to center our students and our strategic plan at each board meeting we'll be starting a new tradition of reading vsd the vasd equity statement before each meeting and we'll rotate each board member we'll have the opportunity to read the statement to ensure that we're grounding ourselves in in the work that we're all here for which
061is to support our students and make sure that every student has what they need to be successful that statement is that each student has access to the resources and educational rigor that they need at the right moment in their education regardless of race gender ethnicity ability language family background or family income dr clardy would you like to add anything on that on that front first good evening everyone i'm very delighted to have my first meeting as the new superintendent of our own area school district i'm very proud of this board of education for not just acknowledging but having a willingness to lead through the educational equity stance that is that you see before you before you on the screen uh that one of the reasons is important that it's there is that equity at times
062can get misconstrued into a number of different issues or slogans or phrases and become quickly misaligned unless we're very specific about what we mean when we say educational equity the the stance and the phrase and admission that noah just read and this before you on the screen is exactly what we mean when we say educational equity it's not to be twisted misconstrued as to anything else that's exactly what you see so each of the decisions that this board of education will make and the leadership moves that i will make as a superintendent are grounded in this in this equity stance so i appreciate our willingness to put it before our community um at the beginning of each board of education meeting and i'm looking forward to a a wonderful and long term your ship as
063the new superintendent of ronery school district thank you very much and we will be moving on to public comment i'm going to look to rachelle to see if we have a microphone for in-person public comment and okay excellent do we want people to enter up on the stage okay excellent while we do that i'm going to i'm going to read through the one public comment that we have that's been submitted via email this comment is from cody ashbeck who writes i am concerned about a new class at our middle schools this class is called youth empowerment justice and joy after t talking with the school director it was confirmed that the curriculum is not yet defined it is irresponsible to require a class that is not yet defined less than two months from the start
064of the school year also to make room for the class the foreign language program was modified the problem though is that our students are now introduced to a foreign language at a year later than before this is the wrong direction we should introduce our students to foreign languages earlier not later everything about this new class seems forced problematic contentious and destined for failure please postpone it for one year so it can be debated and reviewed and it is my understanding that that public comment will be addressed uh during a presentation under the superintendent's report so for those who are in person uh viewing this meeting or online viewing this meeting please stay tuned and hopefully your questions and concerns will be addressed now we'll start with public comment in person for those who have signed
065up feel free to start making a line down here at the start of the stage i will welcome you onto the stage and you can speak into the microphone at the open seats here we have three that are signed up so far and we will start with bob ross so feel free to join us on the stage where the open seats are with the microphone and again a reminder not just for those who are in public comment but for board members as well if you could try and speak directly into the microphone for the benefit of those who are viewing online that is greatly appreciated and welcome you'll have about five minutes or less [Laughter] that might not be on pull it closer we'll see how that goes okay so good evening board members i
066appreciate uh appreciate your time tonight um just had a few things i wanted to chat with you about or at least kind of put out there that my wife and i thought were important and the first one actually was talked about i guess in a letter to uh to the board in the public comment there but uh you know i think when we first heard that this new class was going to be offered or put into place it kind of elicited two reactions the first one was interest and okay what what is this and then the second one was concern over is this you know like is this something that uh you know sort of fits the the values the narrative and everything else and so the interest comes just because we're involved parents right
067like we're very involved in our in our children's education and the concern comes from some of the things you hear out there you know around a new curriculum being put in place sort of the background of that you know across certain areas of the country and just recognizing that sometimes these classes can be sort of divisive um and potentially more activism than education and so that's where the concern piece of it comes from um it's particularly concerning to us because in this year of virtual learning we had the opportunity to overhear a fair amount of what was going on in some of these classes and we did you know hear a number of instances where teachers personal political opinions were being broadcast through the classrooms specifically through middle school um in this experience and so
068that's unfortunate and i think that's a to me that's a red flag of how sensitive um and challenging discussions are occurring in the classroom at times and i don't know if that's happening every time or with every teacher but you know that is that is a concern and so you know unfortunately there's sort of little balance there for for young middle school students to challenge the authority and and the teachers narrative um at that age and so you know what it's of sort of concern what is the what is the content of that course and so because of where we're at and what we've seen firsthand we're really asking for two things and one is just public transparency is what is the content of the course um and a more detailed understanding of what our
069learners will be exposed to and then the second one is understanding is this going to be a mandatory class or is this something that will be ultimately optional for for our learners the second topic i wanted to discuss was just understanding more about what the current position is on mask mandates um going into this fall um you know i think that uh you know it feels like maybe it's a long way away but this really less than two months away you guys are all uh probably well aware um and so we'd like to to know what is what is that position i think that uh i saw that there's gonna be a virtual option for those who are uncomfortable returning in person um but for those who do return in person i'll tell you that
070our position our our goal is to to see that they have a fully optional um fully optional as to whether or not to wear masks coming back to school this fall and so if those folks who want to return in person choose to wear a mask great i think we should we should have a welcoming environment that makes them feel comfortable to do so i think for those who do not want to wear a mask i think that should be you know open for them to do that as well so um i guess the sooner we we hear kind of where we're going with that um and then what the contingency plans would be if things change substantially from where we're at today um that's what we're hoping to hear so those two items and
071appreciate your time appreciate any feedback that uh that we get through this meeting and and through future communication thank you thank you very much bob appreciate it next we have absolutely vanessa hensey welcome hi there thanks for your flexibility i just have a couple minutes before i'm late um i just wanted to speak to you i don't have anything prepared but just i also want to speak about the transparency i'd like to see as a parent i right now have four kids that will be at an elementary school and i also echo what bob was saying about being able to see things that were being said i have the ability to be a stay-at-home parent so i was very involved with my children's online learning and some of the classes that um were being taught
072it wasn't overwhelming but some of the social emotional things that are being taught we're introducing stereotypes to my kids that they never once thought about because i feel like kids don't see things as adults do and sometimes we push it on them too early so a lot of these things i think need to be saved for older older children i'm not sure i think the exact age but i think it'd be more harmful than beneficial even though we're trying to be beneficial with what we're teaching them um but i think it can do more harm so i just like to also with that middle school class that you said will be spoken about later so i'm very curious to hear what that will be just to know what that's about and just really lay out
073the curriculum for all parents and also provide opportunities like was mentioned in the letter for parents and the board members to vote on this new curriculum instead of pushing it out like you said it's two months away and we still don't even know what this class is that seems kind of like a rush timeline in my opinion so just yeah really pushing for transparency i'd also like to speak briefly on masking and vaccination i think it's really important we provide the opportunity for families to make decisions that they think is best for their children's health verona is offering virtual learning which i think is amazing opportunity for families i think masking should be optional for families as well as i really want to make sure we don't have division between vaccinated families and unvaccinated just
074because that can really pull apart communities i think and i really think health should be left to doctors and families to make those decisions what is best for their families i just had experience even last year with my children on 80 degree day running the mile being forced to wear a mask the entire time and it was a very terrible experience um and just the science is continuing to show that it's not as necessary so i think just giving the option not saying not at all maths people just leave that freedom as a public school and just different ideas be left up to individual families i think is really important those freedoms so thank you for your time thank you very much thank you karen pinks welcome hello this is my first verona school board
075meeting well congratulations i thought i'd start out with a bang and start by speaking um i'm also kind of speaking on the same things that the previous speakers taught talked about i am also concerned about this class it was brought to my attention just about a week ago and i had about 20 parents come up to me and we all had kind of similar concerns and we can't even really do anything about it because there's absolutely you can't find anything it's very hard to navigate i know you're revamping the website that's definitely a goal i've heard it's hard to find any information and from an outsider it feels like not transparency um and of course not to be super controversial but critical race theory is in the back of all of our minds we all
076witnessed our kids schooling for the first time i always wish i could be a fly on the wall but this year i was a fly in the room i i witnessed a lot of things that concerned me if this class is controversial i just ask that you inform all the parents and be transparent about what the goals are of this class we're also concerned about the academic foundation of this class because last year was not great academically you know um [Music] test scores were very low a lot of kids were absent a lot virtual learning was not beneficial to a lot of kids they did not thrive last year and now we're changing of course um i've witnessed how great language has been because one of my daughters is in the tweet program at sugar
077creek and i know how it is so beneficial to your brain especially at a younger age um so i i just want to advocate for that class maybe you know have an option and i don't know what's going to get pushed from the 7th grade to accommodate that world language class the following year instead and i also want to speak about i also would like to see masks optional next year a few communities such as belleville baraboo edgerton evansville lodi and waunakee have decided to make mass optional in the fall i know a lot of other school districts are waiting until closer because everything is a you know ongoing changing situation right now but i would love to see you know if if you're going to make a decision either way try asking teachers how
078they feel um ask parents send out a survey find out some input before making the decision if you're not going to allow mass to be optional and one last thing i feel very strongly that kids should not be discriminated against based on their vaccination status unfortunately this virus has become very political and so putting something outwardly becoming outwardly apparent of something that's a internal personal decision a medical freedom issue i think would open the doors to discrimination and bullying in classrooms i ask that you please not make different rules based on vaccine status next year for our children they don't need to be the victims of you know different political agendas i appreciate you listening to me i'm super nervous but i'm glad that i got that over with and now i can be more
079involved as we all are probably happy that this is an in-person event and it's nice to see all your smiling faces and i hope our kids can see smiling faces and that smiles can be contagious this year once again thank you thank you thank you very much this is the last call for any additional public comment all right see none i really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to either email the board or attend a meeting in person to speak um the board always appreciates public input during our meeting so thank you all with that we can move to announcements are there any announcements from the board yes i would like to welcome first dr clarity to the district is our the first board meeting um we're officially at what a week and a
080half in now so absolutely so welcome and we're thrilled to have you sitting with us thank you um and also say the same to nicole welcome and we're thrilled to have you sitting with us um and we have so many uh new administrators on our team and so um i know we'll get introductions uh personally but we are so grateful um that you've joined the asd and we really look forward to working with you so welcome to to all of you this is the start of a a new chapter for our district and we're very excited to see um see our district grow so thank you for being part of it to everybody excellent thank you very much any other announcements from the board now i just want to acknowledge um the gratitude for staff
081who are helping with summer school my own students are not in summer school but i have neighbors who are participating and i'm always grateful for all of these staff that are willing and able to offer summer school and i think this summer especially it's very appreciated so thank you very much and thank you to the families and to our students for participating in summer school thank you any other announcements from the board dr clardy any announcements for you absolutely yeah thank you again for tremendous opportunity to lead which i'll say i'll say now i've said it all the time we will be the national model for excellent ground and equity i truly believe that and we in this starts at this moment um and i um encouraged by what i've heard i'm encouraged by the
082direction that we are going and i'm so thankful to this board for uh having trust in my leadership and our leadership to uh be able to move this community uh in a cohesive direction with that said i am very proud as one of my new leadership moves to announce the formation of three uh advisory councils that will report directly to the superintendent there will be a student advisory council we are going to be very intentional uplifting student voice understanding uh their perspectives and i think no one knows a child or student's needs better than a student and being able to have that directly reported to the superintendent is i think it's a great opportunity for for students and i am excited to have those voices uh with me uh beginning in september uh the next
083two advisory councils will be a parent advisory council we will be looking for recommendations from our school leadership for for parents to be a part of the parent advisory council to the superintendent followed by a teacher advisory council you want to be very clear when i say teacher advisory council yes i'm talking about classroom teachers as well as any educator in the building so that's our i i see everyone as a teacher in subject whether it's food service our psych social work our custodians we provide an education in some fashion some way or manner to everyone that we interact with so that is all-inclusive that we have those voices and we're able to truly invest in pillar four and uplifting our our staff and allow them to do their best work so extremely long excitement
084for those advisories and i think they will help in serving and advising our leadership moves for the foreseeable future next i just want to recognize some of our new additions to the bronier school district team that have not been able to be recognized yet first is the new executive assistant to myself and to the board of education mrs rhiannon smith and she's actually behind the screen doing the presentation for us so she might stick her head out here for us but thank you thank you brianna a very very familiar face but in a new role and will be working in partnership with me on these advisory councils is ms tamara stanley who is our new family and community engagement coordinator congratulations tamara we're also extremely excited to for a new director of bilingual programs and
085instructional equity and dr sylvia romero-johnson leading our director of pupil services and in the new position is mrs tracy williams who's sitting right behind you and if you're ever having a day and just need to smile to brighten your life just tracy williams will bring that every single time thank you so for everything you do tracy and finally for a special education our new director of special education will be uh dr sarah hallberg who is right here thank you thank you sarah for uh joining congratulations on your new position within uh the verona air school district so that is all the announcements i have today um just wanted to be clear that these are not all new hires some of these are re uh repurposing of positions that were currently existed we really felt that
086both our external candidates were very strong but also elevated some internal candidates to new positions in direct service of our schools and our buildings it is so important that we look at our organizational chart as not as a hierarchy our organizational chart is in direct service and support of schools that is our vision and mission the magic happens in the classroom it doesn't we can talk a lot out here but the magic happens in the classroom and that is our focus is to keep students at the center of all of our decisions and make sure that we are supporting each individual school each individual leader and all of our staff and students because that's where the excellence will come to life so again thank you for the opportunity but i also wanted to as we're
087announcing new hires is very important why these people are in these spaces is for our students in our classroom thank you very much dr clardy and i think that this time of of change great change um as meredith said it's a new chapter for for the veronica school district um and we're thrilled to to work with you and support your leadership i think that this calls for a round of applause for our new hires and those who are taking on new roles i sincerely appreciate everyone who's joining the team and looking forward to the many hours of of work ahead so all right any other announcements from the board okay hearing none we can move to board business our first item of business is the swearing-in of our new board member nicole vafadari meredith or
088christina christina will be leading the swearing-in process okay so i will say a few words and you'll just repeat after me but i also nicole gave you that cheat sheet in case i somehow very much appreciate it all right nicole vafadari i'm nicole vapidari having been appointed to the office of verona area school board member portion 2 city of fitchburg having been appointed to the office of verona area school board member portion 2 city of fitchburg swear that i will support the constitution of the united states swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of wisconsin and the constitution of the state of wisconsin and will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties and will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of said office to the best
089of my ability so help me god congratulations thank you excellent well i'll open it up if you want to make any opening statements but you do not have to [Laughter] but certainly welcome you to the board and looking forward to working with you i i am super honored by the opportunity to serve um and just for everyone here i appreciate every parent as a relatively new parent myself i appreciate every parent taking any time out of their day to dedicate even more to their children and i appreciate all of the teachers and support staff here um i am just so honored and i would like to let everybody know here and i would like to invite everyone to challenge me and constantly remind me that this is an honor to serve and should be based
090in that service so thank you again for that opportunity and i look forward to working with all of you thanks so much thank you we'll now move on to item b of board business the appointment of board treasurer before we proceed with that i'd just like to recognize the the service of amy almond who i believe served the district for at least 16 years many of her years as board treasurer and has helped us maintain and build a very strong financial position that that has led to um once in a generation projects like we see with our new high school campus so i'm incredibly grateful for her service and wish her the best in her her new adventures but i also have the privilege of of appointing the new board treasurer uh and i will
091be appointing jana williams who has been an incredible addition to the board has shown unmatched dedication and has presented just incredibly valuable insights on how to make strategic investments that really impact our kids in positive ways so jana will serve as as a board treasurer and as chair of the finance committee uh and i'm appreciative that you're willing to take on this new role thanks noah i really appreciate it and to everyone you know amy was doing this for a very very long time so i am asking for grace and patience as we move forward and developing you know our budget and ensuring that we are adhering to pillar five and allocating resources in a way that serves all of our students and the needs that they each have so i look forward to it
092and over time i will feel a lot more confident in this role budgets are a challenge for me and not that i can't keep budgets but school budgets in wisconsin are unique for those who may not know but i look forward to the challenge and working with all of you and our new staff around the budgets for our school district so thanks noah thank you all right and now we can move on to item c of board business and we'll consider approval of our consent agenda items we have our regular board meeting minutes and we have personnel items is there any individual discussion on any of these consent agenda items second call for any discussion last call hearing none i'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda items if there isn't an objection this
093motion will be adopted are there any objections last call for any objections hearing none the consent agenda has been approved and we can move on to our superintendent's report dr clarity i'll kick it over to you thank you noah i'll just say it's weird having this behind me so i'm just trying to use it first i want to again open with extreme gratitude um the picture that you see behind me is a representation of uh some of our staff for our central office leadership team or some members of our central office leadership team and i tell you it's a group of individuals that are committed and dedicated to equity-based outcomes and the service of all of our students and that means as uh no representative is really adhering to our educational equity equity statement and
094being a service to all students at the time that they need the right the right services sometimes the right intervention sometimes the right acceleration i also want to give gratitude to amy allman uh who just stepped down on the board you know about 16 years of service uh to the board of education and the role as a treasurer as well not only for her being a part of the hiring community that brought me into this organization but that is a significant amount of time and effort and service of community and so we've been forever indebted to that service and want to make sure that we give her uh the appropriate appropriate things and thank you noah for lifting that up when you think about gratitude i during the onboarding process or during transition i was
095able to get in front of multiple family members community members and just listen and learn from the perspectives of so many people across our which is a very sense of boundary area and i think the one thing that all of our family community members wanted was to for me to understand the perspective we're not always going to agree it's just not always going to happen we're not always going to agree but when we disagree we can disagree with honor and we knowing that you've been heard that we've been respected a little bit of respect and that we will come to resolutions with students at the center and i think the hardest part about educational leadership is that you're thinking about a vast diverse clientele of students across from so many backgrounds and so many demographic
096areas and so many boundary areas and so so many social economic statuses and what's necessary in one area may be different in that other area and so that means that you have to leave with conviction and a moral compass that we're going to do what's best for all of our students and keep that at the center of our of our decision making and finally i mentioned this earlier and is not a uh just respect to the to the adults but i absolutely love to adore to be able to listen and learn from students the the tours of buildings and be able to sit down and talk to students that's where that's where you learn the most our students have such a perspective of what your what they're experiencing they have such a perspective of what
097they need and desire and becoming a greater member of a global society and they will then they don't have any problems articulating to that in very candid manners and so i'm appreciative to all my students that i've been able to listen and learn from and looking forward to the student advisory council that will continue to carry on that vision of making sure students are heard so i wanted us to reground us in the any in the equity statement because when we went through the hiring process which you know it's probably been about a year and a half now of of a hiring process uh obviously i haven't been i was in boyd madison metropolitan during uh that time but that was a very long process but if you read any of the input from the
098community either number one or number two on the list sometimes they put back and forth the community clearly stated do not back away from the equity work make sure that you analyze and understand what each students need so every student will be successful and they meant that and i feel like when i uh talked about fit it's not about being the superintendent it was always my desire to be the superintendent for the verona area school district because that's where the fit happened you know we get job offers all the time but the fit was the verona area school district because of this stance and this willingness to engage with some very tough conversations but ensure that every student gets the education that they flat out deserve they deserve the greatness that broner schools have every
099student deserves that greatness and we as a as a leadership team and and as a board and a community we're going to ensure that that act that that happens what's also more important about this equity statement that you see in front of you is that it was actually designed when the strategic client structure framework was built and that was the most significant amount of community input you could imagine across so many stakeholders so i didn't build this statement the board didn't build the statement the community built this statement and so it is our obligation to uphold this statement because they're the ones that built they're the ones that ask for this and we are we require to make sure that we uphold what our community asks for so moving into next year to not acknowledge
100the ramifications of the pandemic and not acknowledge the ramifications of social unrest would not do a service to to our community and and we're not going to turn them blind eye to that we also know that there have to be leadership moves that are grounded in how we are going to move forward as a community together all of us together and that means our theme for next year is not just a theme it's action steps it's a time of healing and then and when you think about time revealing we're talking about the physical ramifications the emotional and societal we will lead with compassion and empathy in service of our community knowing that this has hit us all very hard uh and it's it's emotional sense because you're you talk about you know i heard our
101parents talking about being another side of zooms and they're absolutely right about hearing what's going on but there was also that emotional toll of things that you that you heard you saw teachers doing everything they could to educate while sometimes their own child is right there needing needing attention and trying to balance trying to balance both you saw students that just sometimes wanted to turn their camera off because they just couldn't handle the emotional toll anymore and it's up to us they trust us to to guide them out of that and we are going to do that by being compassionately empathetic and moving together in unity not always agreeing but we will get to this place of unity if we all trust and believe in one another so i believe it was one of the
102parents that spoke and they were hit they were exactly right there's sometimes we can get into initiative overload when we try to accomplish too many things at once and we are committed to two major priorities this year that is continuous improvement planning because there's expectations of our community that continue to continue to improve and that means we'll use goal setting strategies metrics and equity-based budgeting to ensure that our students get the acceleration and advance out of this level of the pandemic education that we were in last year to support that work we will implement school-based leadership teams that will allow us to strengthen pillar 4 that will empower staff it will also allow us to leverage educator knowledge and voice because we have great veteran and young teachers they have a tremendous amount of knowledge
103and we need to leverage their voice and our decision making and then one of the things that'll be most important is that it allows us to strengthen our coherence district-wide in essence we don't want to be an educational system where your education is built off address you want to be an educational system where everywhere we are coherent and we have the mission and venues and belief and we have instructional strategies that are aligned across our district because there is best practice and they're going to be that best practice and so every student deserves those best practices in education and we will strive to be a far more coherent district so with that there also means that there's these there has to be a level of partnership partnership and relationship to the board of education i
104report to them i refer to the board they will hold me accountable there's no absolutely no doubt about it they're going to hold me accountable uh to some very very high expectations that i have of myself you know when you say you're going to be a national model like you better okay now you better prove it and it's not going to stop talking about so they will hold me accountable and for that to come to fruition i'm excited to announce that we're going to do a training together which is called coherence governance model training uh that'll be supported by an outside organization that asked me institute where we were going some very intense full-day trainings over a five-day period before going before school begins where hey it's not just about the coherence governance model it's
105also what we are communicating to you our community community about what you should expect from our board of education and their relationship with me and what you should they expect of me to execute back out to the to the community but without those clear lines of who's doing what that's where things get really mired and uh and you talk and transparency uh appears to be very unclear or doesn't doesn't exist so while it is a huge investment in time it's the right investment in time to make sure that again the accountability measures to me are held as well as we clear no i clearly know my expectations as the superintendent and the board is able to articulate and communicate to the community the area where they will be making very specific decisions and where they
106will assign that to me okay so with that i want to i invite our members from our academic services team [Music] as part of the presentation today from the academic services team uh you'll they'll begin with their why the why behind the the work of the academic services the what the what is our our curriculum each year annually we make a recommendation to our board of education statewide what curriculum we will use in instructing our students like last year and the year before our curriculum will be clearly aligned to the grade level wisconsin state standards and that's what we'll ask our board to approve is that we that we present curriculum that's aligned to the state standards and that'll be for board vote next uh at our at our next session but today we can't
107expect our board to vote on anything without putting the presentation in front of them and what that what those uh what that looks like and then how we'll get into some of the how while we have a curriculum in front of us what is the instruct what are the instructional strategies that we will lean into in service of our students to make sure that they achieve the greatness and the excellence that we that we expect so i'll have our two my two great colleagues introduce themselves and begin with the academic services uh part of the presentation during this you will also hear some components of some of the questions that were that were asked about uh one piece was about the world language and also a piece about the curriculum or the class and the
108rationale behind behind the class good evening everyone so glad to be here i'm dr hawkins um the assistant superintendent of academic services and i am surrounded by great colleagues families and students so we're going to get started the academic services team will support building leaders so that they can continue to align resources develop goals and strategies that allow them to respond to the specific needs of students and families we will operationalize the strategic plan and equity framework by starting with our why our why is what drives our work it is the catalyst it is as dr clarity says it's what fuels and helps to create the magic in schools so when we think about our why our why fuels our beliefs and we believe that every student must be successful we believe that their path
109to success should be personalized and allow for every student to meet or exceed their academic potential we believe that schools will engage in cycles of continuous improvement grounded in equity so the vasd strategic plan serves as the overarching framework that undergirds the work of the academic services team so when we think about our why we then have to take that why and put it into action so we take our beliefs and we then create a theory of action the academic services teams if we work to support schools to engage in cycles of continuous improvement grounded in equity and provides students with opportunities for personalized learning then all students will meet or exceed their academic potential so when we continue to look at what we're going to do there's a lot of work to do but
110we're going to focus on two things actually we're going to focus on a lot of things but the things that rise to the top of our list are continuing to work to make sure that our students are the center of everything we do and we're going to do this through personalized learning plans we're going to continue to deepen our work around continuous improvement the process and the plans we're also going to continue to look at data we're going to ensure that there's coherence we're going to continue to focus on rigor in our curriculum and our instruction and our assessment we're also going to create professional learning plans for district coaches and then as dr clarity said we're going to become a national model for excellence grounded in equity i'm a little behind on my slides
111i get really excited when i get started i'm going to turn it over to amy arbogast she has done an amazing job working with personalized learning and so the pandemic yes it is something that we all had to live and journey through but it is also a time that allowed us to do some things that we wouldn't have had an opportunity to do in education so i'm gonna allow her to share but she's gonna take us through a journey and help us understand more about personalized learning [Music] oh good hi everyone i'm so excited to be here today thank you for having me our first topic today is personalized learning and then dr hawkins will talk about a few more things as well that i'll reference oh wait i gotta advance my screen there we
112go so you'll see that it says personalized learning reboot because i think last year we heard the words asynchronous synchronous concurrent teaching way more than we heard personalized learning and so we're going to be bringing forth the idea of personalized learning but it's really about reaffirming because personalized learning is not just in board policy it's also in our strategic plan and so we're going to be talking about how we're going to move forward from what we have learned in the past year with education so i'm going to start by talking about the beliefs that we have which is we believe that personalized learning is the equity-based instructional strategy that will allow us to achieve the district vision of every student must be successful and we believe that every student deserves to be met where they
113are and supported with their learning through the development of a personalized learning plan so on the screen i know it's hard to see is a reminder of what the vas d plp is that was board approved actually back in and there are four components to the personalized learning plan and that includes profile and goal setting the path collection of evidence and reflection and we've actually done the profile and goal setting twice um the very first year we had a software that went out of business on us so in year two um we actually kind of had to restart everything and have people enter it again so we've actually done the profile goal setting piece twice in two different ways um and then part of the way through that year the pandemic started um last year
114then we had the pandemic and i'm gonna take us back just for a minute for reflection purposes only i know it was a challenging year but we'd be remiss if we don't take advantage of some of the things that we learned last year in education and this year we're going to really be using those pieces to deepen our work with the path so first of all last year i would call the year of technology you know we had no idea what we were going to experience during the pandemic i think even we as adults we use some technologies we never even heard of before in order to do our work and there was no different here in education in our profession teachers were using a lot of systems that they had either used just a
115little bit or maybe had never even heard of before one of those systems is our learning management system we had to have a way to deliver instruction and we delivered that through our learning management systems of seesaw and canvas so we had a really deep understanding of that parents were also very connected to our systems and to our classrooms and learned a lot about what we were doing we also had teachers expanding their knowledge and lots of technologies like zoom which is something that we actually talked about with conferences that people liked a lot so there are there are technologies that we can continue to use moving forward the bottom line is that the high usage of our district approved and supported technologies really has given us a view into what's possible with personalized learning
116and it no longer is a hurdle of understanding the technologies and how we can utilize them at their highest potential that we can use that moving forward into personalized learning so at a very high level today i'm sharing with you the pieces that the academic services team are going to be working on this year to deepen our practices with personalized learning and the very first two have to do with foundational components of the classroom so the very first one is strengthening our core instruction when you have core instruction that's standards which angie's going to talk to you about in a minute and common for formative assessments so that students understand what they know and students understand what they don't know once you know that you're able to target instruction and students then are can be
117given the voice to create their own path to learn what they need to learn from their assessments secondly which angie will also be talking about is be having a data culture in the district we're going to be using the continuous improvement plans and the school-based leadership teams and identifying those data sources to measure success the other two are more what you would think of when you think of personalized learning you do need a solid foundation educational practices in order to personalize learning which is why they're second flexible content and tools like what we used in the past year with learning management systems and we're also talking again about playlists choice boards pathways giving students the ability to make decisions on what works best for them to move their learning forward and then finally the student
118engagement and ownership piece continues working on the pl look fors which includes student voice student choice purpose collaboration and other tools that students use in the classroom for their learning and working to continue to engage families and connect them to what we're doing in the classroom because the vas dplp should be the parents are to be involved in developing the plp with the students so those are the components that we're going to be working on and now i'm passing it back to dr hawkins so as we think about the path that's what the learner does and so that focuses on academics and so i like to think about it as the five e's we've got equity excellence engagement and expectations and empowerment and so we're going to take all of that and couple it with
119the strategic plan the equity framework and we're going to align it with the why our theory of action this then ties into our academic standards and so every year under section 120.12 of the wisconsin state standard state statutes we are required to notify parents and guardians of the academic standards that are used to guide instruction in the verona area school district so here in verona we use common core standards for english language arts and all literacy k-12 we also use the common core standards for math we then use next-gen science those standards for science and then we use the wisconsin social studies standards which were recently adopted in 2018 to guide our work in social studies as we then think about curriculum and instruction so many good things have happened in this area in elementary
120we recently uh brought on new curriculum in reading the reading units of study bridges which is our new math curriculum number corner which is what we're using in math and then this year we realized that we had a void and needed additional um work in the area of phonics for our earliest learners and so we're adopting and now using phonics units of study in middle school ka well excuse me not k868 we're also using the reading units of study two years ago the verona area school board approved the review of the world language program study and this was um by the american council of the teaching of foreign languages so when we're thinking about what we're doing in curriculum what what our students are learning on the path we want to be able to offer
121additional course offerings and part of this work is a result of this program review that was done by the american council on teaching of foreign languages and so this review of our programming gave us specific recommendations around some of our course offerings and so they also had some very good things to say about what we do with world languages recommendations for improvements would suggest that we would look at our courses at sixth grade and so to address some of the questions that came up about the language course what we're doing is we're ensuring that students are moving to proficiency with language so in sixth grade there was a sixth grade language exploration class and based on the recommendations of this study what they found and what they recommended is that learning language in one class
122that was just an exploration class students would be better assured proficiency when they learned language over a longer span of time so in sixth grade students had one quarter of language with this recommendation we're moving this course or adjusting the course so that students now have an entire semester of language learning which will ensure not just an exploration of a class but proficiency and mastery of a language students now have an opportunity in sixth grade as an elective to take or select the youth empowerment course and or other courses that are offered so that is just one of the recommendations from that study that was um brought on about two years ago also thinking about the work of the academic services team dr obviously very quick oh i wanted to add to the world language
123component because when you talk about world language we want to make sure that our families and community are clear that it's not just about exposure to the world language our expectation and your expectation is that we play the system in place where a student actually becomes proficient and has the ability to become proficient in that in that world language what the study identified was while there was the move to a second to second for a full semester for seventh grade that's in addition to eighth grade where now they can carry that language over for a full year and now you have the continuity that you actually need to be able to access a world language as compared to the more truncated version of one quarter and then a smaller period of time seventh grade and
124and not been able to fully access it as uh as an eighth grader um as as fully access as a fifth grader what this allows us for us to engage deeply in world language for a full semester carry that over to a full year in a world language and that is what all of our studies researchers have shown and especially the resources that dr hawkins is referencing that is what actually allows you to become proficient in the language as compared to just being exposed to the language so the additional work that dr clarity referenced is our continuous and our continuous improvement work so all of our schools will create a continuous improvement plan we had an opportunity to visit uh country view today and they were able to share with us their work around their
125creation of their continuous improvement plan and their theory of action so all schools will continue and deepen that work around continuous improvement and then they will also create a theory of action so their theory of action is going to articulate specific strategies they're also going to create goals that are steeped in school data their data and then they're going to create professional development plans that teachers will engage in learning that will directly impact student outcomes in the classroom lastly i want to say thank you all for the opportunity to serve we are committed the academic services team to support our leaders to help create and build our leaders so that we will see improved and continued outcomes for students in our classrooms thank you very much questions from the board [Music] i have a general
126question um what the um personal learning plans do ladies have an estimate of roughly how long the development of this plan takes in regards to how much time a parent or guardian or adult learning companion for the child would need to invest and spend in order to develop this with their child i'll try that one so what i what i consider a plp is it's the living breathing work that the students do all day long in their classes and that's why it's so it's so pivotal that we had the lms learning that we did last year because all of that work and all of the things that they do are going to be going into those systems so that they're able to do things like create the path the evidence the reflection i know that
127in the past that we've done with families is we have family contact day and we also have conferences where these are reviewed with the parents i think the board policy is reviewed once a year but we've tried to review it several times a year with families and also families now have access into our systems where they're able to see things comment on things and and we haven't had as much connection in the past as we do now so i don't really have a time for you but i just i see it as a living breathing thing now that we have the lms additionally so you have the plp and that is based on student interest and so a teacher will take the time to work with the family and the child to learn what the
128student likes what drives the student what are the students passions and then from there the teacher takes all that information and she he or she will use that to drive what happens in the classroom so when we think about differentiation we think about how does a teacher take what a student likes interest and takes that that makes learning relevant how does the teacher pull in articles and create projects that are interest-based that makes learning come alive for a student so when we talk about personalized learning that's what personalized learning is it's taking what students like taking their interest taking all of that putting it into the classroom and creating lessons creating assessments that include student voice student choice allows students to create and drive their learning so as she said it's not a one and
129done it's a process that will happen we take and create a plan we revisit the plan students create goals research would say that student goal setting is one of the best ways to drive student achievement when students take a responsibility for their learning i set a goal i i am innately responsible for my learning along with the teacher who helps to facilitate it so then it becomes relevant and alive and it makes meaning for me so it's not something that you can put a time frame on it is something that we will develop and help our teachers become more masterful and intentional with the work that they're doing in the classroom thank you brother jump in yeah because you just said that last statement that's what i was going to just try to encapsulate when
130you did it right there is just the recognition in in what i'm hearing you all share about how targeted the approach is for next year and hopefully the staff feel that same targeted intention in terms of how their work days are structured and their meetings and support to make all of that happen because i've been on the teacher's side of that and it's hard when you're balancing 18 000 things and i i like what i'm hearing in terms of the focus and the drive to put all of that into practice because yes to all the things you shared and the time the staff will be investing that that is prioritized with your support as well and just one other piece that i know we've kind of surfaced a bit in a way at previous board
131meetings but the curiosity that i have um when you shared what is my slide 15 but i think yours may have varied slightly about surfacing formative assessments and data sources and being open to being creative with that i know we've talked about that in terms of making budgeting decisions what are the sources of our data and are we using data that's really telling us information we want to know about our students so i'm excited to see where those pieces grow in terms of data collection other questions i just wanted to follow up on your mention of the world language audit and thank you for kind of recapping that because that was uh pre-coded so having been on cia for a while i now i'm revisiting what i remember about the world language audit um after
132a lot of other things occurred my request as a middle school parent so having an eighth grader and having had two others who are now done with high school you know there's been evolution at the middle school level over time and i think from a parenting perspective if there's a way to create a visual aid that would just help us as parents guardians family members um visualize again the sixth seventh and eighth grade elective evolution i guess i would call it because i know it's changed somewhat obviously for my older students and now with my eighth grader it's changed from even when she was a sixth grader so some kind of simple visualization would be great and i think would help clear up some communication so i really appreciate you going over the world language
133audit because having remembered the recommendations there were a lot of recommendations that came out of that that having a unified semester was a better approach than having these smaller pieces [Music] again if we can be reminded of what students have and again i have a two-way immersion student so it's also complicated by that because i know the three students at middle school their elective pathways through sixth seventh and eighth look different than a monolingual student so if there's something like that in the works i thank you because it's hard for me and others parents remember really to remember what that looks like sometimes i wanted to just add a comment um and then also just a clarification first the comment i mean my first bit of volunteer involvement in the district was on the personalized
134learning committee many years ago um and i was very skeptical then um about it uh and i really like where it's going now kind of moving beyond the goal setting and really the hiccup we had with uh whatever it was the company that went out of business tiffany yeah left us high and dry for a year there oh not not a fun memory um but i really like where this is going i really like um how this is kind of a total approach i can see how this can be incorporated into conferencing and things in a way that hopefully saves teachers times instead of just ads you know coming up with smart goals to it which i know is something that happened a lot um in the beginning before the company went out of business
135so i really like what's going on i would be interested as you guys move forward with this to hear about how you're balancing the need for personalized learning with um kind of the mandate to use data and particularly the tendency towards using data in a standardized way because there's there's a tension between standardized data and personalized experiences that that a good personalization plan and an accountable way has to like kind of bridge that that juxtaposition so i'd really be interested in hearing how you guys think about that not tonight obviously but that's kind of an overarching like going forward but i really like how you're how you're starting to think about how you're playing it out there this is great this is something i'm really really excited about um so that's great and then also
136a clarification because i'm not sure i understood along the same lines with wanting to understand how middle school electives get communicated out so these classes the world languages which i've always struggled with the name world languages because it's really they're all european languages so that's just my little two cents right there but um how those classes are they're all electives and what i hear you saying is this other other class that's come up in comments that we're referencing today too and i forgot the name of it um because my memory's not that great um those are all electives we're talking about the electives not the core the encore these are right so these are all electives or optional classes students get to choose so there are core classes that students have to take like math
137social studies those kind of things so then um you would have chosen whether you're going to take the exploration class or band or this on the what was then known as the wheel and so students students i see a light bulb going on vague memories so students selected their courses or they made their course selection before school ended and so now um well i'll i oh i think you i'll stop yeah they're all kind of electives right yeah okay but i agree some sort of visualization for us we can do that for memory folks thank you very much that's i really like the personalized learning thing i'm jazzed about that i do have a quick question and i stepped out to use the restroom so if you answered it i'm so sorry um but my
138question is i i love all of this particularly with my focus area being project design and inquiry-based learning i think that this is great the question that i have is as we are shifting um or rebooting for lack of better words how do we ensure that our teachers have capacity to do this um i think it's great but i just want to be sure that we are setting realistic expectations of our teachers as they are you know determining what our kids want to do what they're interested in what they need to teach as it relates to um the standards that they have to adhere to so how are we ensuring that we're building that that capacity and being aware of all of the changes they're going to have as we do this way absolutely we
139certainly want to keep in mind initiative fatigue um and and make sure that our teachers well that our principals are listening to the needs of our teachers but when we look at we'll look at our data and then we will then develop a professional development plan that is structured so that we're looking at where students and teachers what they need and build it so that it allows for teachers to learn teachers to apply teachers to revisit teachers to receive feedback so important for teachers to have critical feedback and so we're working with our coaches so that we're giving them what they need the tools that they need so that they can provide the feedback to the teachers so that the teachers can continue to learn and grow so um to answer your question how are
140we going to do this one we're going to listen to the teachers and we're going to build plans that are based on best practices for adult learning okay thank you wait i might have a problem so well each teacher's kind of plan be different then or are you kind of you know so each teacher's plan wouldn't be different okay so when we build our continuous improvement plan there would be a professional development plan that will be embedded in that plan okay thank you other questions thoughts so i was like there's no questions first i think we're good for now all right i still want to make sure uh based off some of the comments that we are very clear about what the youth uh or the student empowerment class is not the youth empowerment class
141is not a in any way you're an attempt for adults to to put their political values on to sponsored students a youth empowerment class is exactly as the title states is a actually a student asks for a course that allows court students to have a space for them to dialogue and advocate for things that they need and want and as as they continue to mature and grow and just be very frank our our children and my child will be here too uh in september are going into the most diverse global society in history that is a fact it is our ultimate responsibility to make sure that we produce a broad area scholarship graduate that is able to navigate and thrive in the most diverse global society in history that is what we are working to
142do and that's what our students have asked for a space or a place in the form of courses that allows for that to happen if and when or not you have been wanted better not we should not have a a politicized version or politicized outcomes as far as you have to believe this or you have to believe these thoughts that is not what these courses are they are for students they are for students to have a space to dialogue together their space for students to have those conversations together with their peers because these are the same peers that they're going to go into high school with they're the same peers that they're going to go into our diverse society with they're the same periods that are going to experience the greatness of our own air
143school district and actually have a space to do that together and so i know we will be held accountable for that um i know you'll hold us accountable for that but i just want i don't think we clearly said what it is not and it should not be a a political place for an adult to instill their political thoughts onto a child dr clardy could i ask a follow-up question sure um i think the statement that you made is resonates quite heavily with all of us and um [Music] for anyone instructing this class clearly it's kind of a new and necessary space to navigate correct can you speak to any special training that will be provided to those instructing this class to make sure that the teacher instructor is able to navigate these really sensitive
144but extremely important commentary that's happening yeah so when i talked about uh making sure that we have at the building level and as a child's level a professional learning professional development support that is that's the piece of it because these conversations our students may seek advocacy in a space that's outside of that class too so it's not i i would i don't think we'd be doing this ourselves just if we only said we trained for that class where we're training as part of our professional development for those four tough conversations to happen and to make sure that student voice is uplifted and resonated without being interfered with with you know but here are my beliefs that's that's not what we're trying to do um and so yes it does take a significant amount of professional
145development i'm confident or professional development team um it is a priority for us to make sure that but i didn't want to leave the space that is trained just for that class sure it's it's training as part of our our professional development system that clearly one point that i wanted just to to clarify the board is involved i'm going to reiterate the board is involved in approving our curriculum standards but we aren't involved in improving specific courses and we never have been that wouldn't be our role as board members we're not the professionals that's why we we trust our professionals but we have established as we've talked about our strategic plan and we have clear directives through that and i think the courses that are ultimately brought forward to our our students are in alignment
146with are directed through the strategic plan um one of the things that i think is important is that we really um developing critical thinkers is one of a key like a key goal of us as uh as an educational um institution i mean our students have to leave our district with skills to think critically which would go completely in the face of you must think this so i think that that is the reassurance that our goal is to develop critical thinkers and that means that they're going to have to um challenge and push back and and there's certainly not a pre-determined outcome of thought and i can also say anything you tell a child to think they will think the opposite anyway so that's that's maybe just mine um but i think this gives a
147space to help develop those critical thinking skills that we have seen time and time and time again uh raised up as a request of our students and our parents absolutely thank you dr clara i also want to thank you for underscoring the importance of preparing students to enter a very diverse global society and as a parent of a student who is in the inaugural class for the two-way immersion program i just want to say that a lot of things came out of the world language audit and they were all recommendations for how to strengthen and continue the district's direction in creating strong bilingualism or biliterate students so i think i'm just proud of this district's progress in the seal of bi-literacy i know we didn't have what we normally would have to honor those students
148this year because of covid but i see the recommendations from the world language audit only strengthening um what the work we are doing to have more and more students eventually reach that that high level of proficiency in multiple languages so i just want to assure people that i i you know having seen the results of that audit really feel we are moving toward creating higher levels of proficiency in multiple languages and we'll continue to do that and i look forward to when we can again honor the candidates who go through the seal of bio literacy because it's a very high level of proficiency and it's um you know we're hoping to continue to grow the number of students who received that so thank you absolutely thank you other questions or comments all right thank you
149both very much [Music] while we're transitioning i'm proud to be able to bring two members of our student services team uh to this to the stage for a quick transition and maybe if i could stand up and stretch your legs for a minute while they come to the stage so i'm also into wellness so take care of the sticker every time [Music] sure [Music] thank you [Music] all right i'm proud to uh turn to mike over to our two great members of our student services team and i'd love to do introductions and presentations excellent thank you very much dr clarity and to the board and to uh the public that's here i really appreciate it so my name is dr emma durchie i am the assistant superintendent for student services um and this is tracy
150williams and she's been introduced earlier and uh sarah albert back there and i'll mention her again because they are two of the really important leaders within the division or work within student services and just a little bit i know there's new board members here too student services includes the work of special education students with disabilities who have ieps as well as 504 plans it also involves our work across the district with school psychologists counselors social workers mental health supports mental coordination nurses health assistants we also oversee registration open enrollment tuition waivers and a few other things so it's an exciting area in the district it really touches all buildings um all work within every building and the community and uh thinking about um what what's happened within the world in the community with coba the
151last year and a half there's been a lot of different pieces that we've been able to engage in and so we would like to take a few minutes to kind of bridge from the work that's been shared just recently which we really appreciate around the academic work um and pulling it back a little bit to some of the social emotional and physical needs of our students and families and how we can address those in some ways um might be in reverse right and we'll get to that in a second so um let's see do i get to control these slides here wow power so um we're going to start with a couple slides to kind of ground us and ground the work and what we're going to be sharing because ultimately in a couple minutes
152we'll share a few things that are strategies to help support our students families and our staff in preparing for this coming fall physically social emotionally societally in order to prepare themselves to achieve academically which is what we just talked about so this slide brings us back to the theme for the year the sister theme is a time of healing physical emotional societal we need to focus on our physical bodies our mental health our social health we're excited to bring kids back and see them face to face and to prepare them for a fall where we hopefully see all of our students or most all of our students act face to face with each other the next slide and i just um i want to also ground us briefly in something that many of us might
153have read about or learned about in school in high school perhaps middle school even or in college which is the hierarchy and needs from masloff so this is a psychologist from back in the 1940s and he developed a hierarchy of needs the reason i put this slide on here is to remind us of those basic human needs that each of our students each of our parents to our staff members has these basic needs for physiological health and needs being met safety needs love and belonging esteem in order to get to that place of self actualization or some people call it growth mindset now that kind of ongoing learning and being a positive successful member of society massive understood that those basic needs had to be met in order to get to higher levels of success
154the next slide is just to ground us back it's mentioned several times already this meeting that ground us back to that strategic plan the board put together a couple years ago um each of those pillars those five pillars also are addressed in the work that we've been doing around covert and social emotional needs we're thinking about those authentic relationships safe inclusive learning environments high expectations for students that rigor that we need supporting and empowering our staff which is critical because that's what dr clara said that's where magic happens in those classrooms with um strong teachers educating our students and equitable allocation resources which has also been mentioned and i have to do a little shout out to the board i think all of those in some way or others have already been mentioned tonight so
155that's that's very exciting i keep coming back to those pillars so i just want to make sure that we are thinking through that and then we're going to connect those to our why our beliefs and our theory of action and tracy will take you for a minute good evening and so as we work through it with the student services department we want to talk about what our why is and our why is we believe that every student has a right to have access to basic needs such as food shelter financial security transportation and mental health services and that these are critical to improve overall wellness academic success and post-secondary outcomes and so our why is what pushes us and then we come up with a theory of action so this is our why and so
156if we do these certain things then this is the result so our theory of action is if we work collaboratively as a district and community to implement healing strategies and ensure all basic needs are met then students families and staff will have the tools necessary to heal physically emotionally society and society and accelerate student academic growth thanks tracy the you'll hear that language um more and more throughout the year so just a reminder that why our beliefs should be where what roots our whole work and the theory of action is really taking those beliefs into action so what are some of the things that we will be doing oh boy these slides are so blurry so i apologize for that um so we have a lot of things on the slide we're only going to
157address a few that directly link or most clearly link to the work that's coming out of code and response so we've added a number of staff positions to help support our schools we've added nurses during covet and some of those will continue on we've also added health assistance they have been pivotal in our work um instrumental in contact tracing supporting families immunizations and so forth um we've also added some social work allocation which has also been critical in helping support families as housing issues have come up and also in a variety of other supportive functions as well as connecting them to outside services for mental health as well as physical health needs in the community and a shout out to our district nutrition office too for all the work they've done throughout covet we're there
158also within in the social emotional wellness um with the kovit and being at home we missed out on really getting laying eyes on students and being able to really build those authentic relationships so we're optimistic and excited about the incoming school year where we can continue to foster those relationships and build those relationships with trusted adults in the building and we want to have eyes on students have them with us so we can see them talk with them just build those rapport that relationship another thing we'll be taking on this year is uh cbits it's now called rest and that is a trauma-informed survey that we'll be doing for sixth grade and ninth grade students and it allows us to um it's a a screener that allows us to look at students that have experienced
159trauma and from that we'd be able to work with them individually to build some supports and strategies to support them through that another area that we've are adding going into the fall as many of you have heard of building bridges it's a partnership we've had for a number of years through the county as well as through catholic charities we are adding some staffing to that as well through that partnership and the county is now allowing us to go into ninth grade so that previously was a pre-k eight program and now we'll be adding ninth as needed in a nutshell that is a service that allows or with a purpose to help connect students with mental health services outside the school system those that need practitioners and therapists to support them individually and as families it's
160been a phenomenal program for a number of years and i've worked really hard with them to allow us to expand it actually because it is a little bit of a tricky uh proposition so we're super excited about that we've added some psychologists to counseling hours as well in other positions that will be again all of those additions or helping support in schools students staff families and making those connections i believe i mentioned to the board also that we were granted a 450 000 grant through the county that we applied for to help with our mental health services that would include things such as trauma-informed professional development uh supports for students experiencing trauma a fair amount of money to meet basic needs like we talked about housing systems utility assistance transportation assistance for families as well
161as funds for supports in classrooms for services or materials for like sensory materials as well as mindfulness practices other number of schools have been pushing into that and we want to make sure that that was supported and then finally we are going to the second year of our grant with uw health it's a five-year grant that will help support high schools specifically and so during the last year we've had a number of students received outside clinical mental health services that was at no cost to them through this grant that will continue um what will be different this next few years will actually have a staff member clinician in the high school helping support that work where before it was referred out so that's another addition and then finally it's not on this list but i
162wanted to add that we recognize the staff needs support too comes without saying many of you know about vfip and other programs that we've used within the district help support staff but we've also done some training around compassion resilience which will be ongoing and we're going to actually do more of that this coming year we did a little bit of that last year and work around mindfulness that isn't just for students but also the mindfulness work that goes to the adults specifically so we appreciate those in the board actually even tonight that mentioned the staff and the the needs i didn't want that to go without being said but that is um definitely something that's the focus of ours and we understand the um that the toll that all of us has taken on all
163of us not just our students and in order for that work to happen at a high level within the buildings in the classrooms for our staff so um anything else so those are types of high level there are other things on the slide you have access to all the slides for other pieces that we didn't bring up at this time any questions or questions you have for us just really quickly further uh questions first thank you for a great presentation i want the audience and the board to really understand our intentionality and support for social emotion and mental health we know going into or coming out of the the pandemic we have to be very intentional and making sure that we are proactive in that approach and that way for a responsive and being a
164responsive nature and that means both staffing it also means resources we talk about equity based budgeting we know that mental health is looms right now we know that it's a serious concern in essence we've all experienced some type of mental trauma uh and we can't say that we haven't this is this is this has been i've been trying so i definitely appreciate the acknowledgement of our staff that this is not only student-based uh support but it's also staff and family-based support knowing how important that is so you know while there are multitude of services that we were providing through our student services department i really uh wanted eminence team to focus on what looks new coming out of coet because just to say the status quo is not good enough and bsd deserves better than
165that and so thank you for uplifting uh the new strategies and the intentionality and we look forward to some tremendous tremendous outcomes um for all our students and families thank you questions comments from the board i just wanted to say i appreciate the why and then your degree of action i think when we had the schools closed last fall and we realized what a huge hole that created for so many families um across all aspects of our society just um it's not just an academic place we feel so many needs through our district services and so um looking at the mental health needs we we can't we can't educate our students if they're not first mentally you know and physically healthy um and again seeing how many things were missing for our kids without a
166building to come to really um highlighted the critical nature of our schools and our our teachers and our staff for our students so i appreciate that we're really investing in this because those needs have now multiplied um over this this difficult time and i i think we are are being very intentional and i appreciate the intentionality in the work that you've put through you're welcome i i think we learned a lot through the pandemic and our continue to learn and one thing is we we had a big focus on authentic relations we often talked about authentic relationships we've learned it's very difficult to build authentic relationships we don't actually get to see don't get to breathe the same air as each other for lack of a serious metaphor during the club but um i do
167believe that that that is critical and um it's hard for us to assess student needs it's hard for us to support um each other it's hard for us to give a kind authentic word or just a look you know without actually seeing kids and staff so we're super excited as everybody is to reground in the most essential pieces of our work i just like to share that um just in my own professional journey as an educator i've often felt that some of the work that we've talked about and perhaps implemented around social emotional supports has sometimes felt like a sidecar and one gratitude i know i have out of the year that we've all experienced is i hope that that is no longer the case moving forward i hope some of the green highlighted things
168become just how we do things now recognizing the social emotional work that we do for staff and what staff do with their students isn't just cute and fun and geez we should just dismiss that to the side for the academics it doesn't happen the academics does not happen without it and i just so appreciate what we've been able to and what you all are doing given the circumstance we're in but i do really hope that this becomes a new direction um and that the community embraces this as well you know just what this work means for students and staff in our district yeah i appreciate that comment as well and i think just to to build on that some of the the things that are mentioned in the why are things that are external factors
169they're not things that can be controlled in our schools in our classrooms but our schools are leading the way nonetheless to ensure that that we're working to ensure all of our students needs are met but again i won't miss an opportunity to highlight the fact that things outside of our schools do affect our students so decisions made at the city council level at the county level at the state level are critical to our student success and so that's something that we all should keep in mind not just as a board and administration but as a community as well to make sure that we're building partnerships and we're holding all entities not just governmental entities but businesses hospitals accountable for our investment in our youth and that is more and more critical every day and certainly
170something that that uh you know light was shown on during the pandemic so i appreciate uh i appreciate the recognition that you know this is again the the proverb that we all know that it takes a village to raise a child um i appreciate recognizing that in the why so thank you can i i just want to add a comment as well um i think over the pandemic one of the things i you know tried to talk about in the hopeful terms as i was working so hard to lose to kellyanna and jen um in the actual election second time that i lost to kellyanna um uh was what can we learn from the pandemic and what can we make our schools better with coming out of this and i think you guys have been
171on a lot of really good stuff i'm really really excited to see this work um and and going forward though i think to echo some of jen's comments i'll be excited to see how this interfaces with uh student services with the the presentations that they were giving because one of my concerns is that social emotional learning is a side car but often carves out its own space in our classrooms and it really has to kind of permeate everything that we do so that it's not just another thing out there but yeah this is this is really really good and i like your bow tie thanks appreciate it i have some i can continue i can't time it i used to know i'll help you time so um thank you for that comment i really appreciate
172that because i i do feel like it's not just within education right i think we as adults need to be good models of how it is to integrate our own social emotional wellness throughout our lives um we model that for our kids from other neighbors our coaches we model it for our teams so that would be my challenge today all of us yeah that we continue to model that and work on it each of us needs to work on it so appreciate that other questions comments no i'll make one comment um i think one of the silver linings of having gone through this tough tough year tough pandemic um is the extra resources we have now in nursing and recognition of mental health and as a board member i think when i first came on
173the board you know sometimes it was hard to assess do we really have enough nursing staff you know and just from my own children's experiences from seeing buildings with nurses that seemed really short you know just spread thin and so if there's a silver lining for me i feel like that additional level of resource that we have now is really a good thing for our students and i hope i can see that continue post-pandemic as something that's a benefit that's come out of the pandemic that continues to help our students for years to come and the recognition that mental health it's always been an issue but i think now that we're more aware of it to really just highlight how important that is for our students and families so one thank you for that comment
174um and i would just if the nurses were here this is what they'd say someone said on their behalf which is um that paired between physical and mental health right so they really see that front lines in their offices in our schools they're not just fixing um scraped knees and you know taking temperatures and they're also very supportive of students and families helping them connect mental health services in the community it's a it's a tricky navigation system out there and so the addition of school nurses helps both physical mental health and they really see that frontlines thank you any other questions or comments yeah sorry i'm trying really hard to sit so but this is something i'm admittedly really passionate about um if i could just piggyback off of something you shared dr clarity about
175creating graduates that can thrive and and excel in a diverse society i think a big piece of that is to be socially and emotionally competent so if that's a learning outcome for all of our graduates is emotional competencies and understanding how all of this works because as adults i feel like we're catching up to hopefully what our kids will be just masters at in terms of understanding and communicating around their social emotional needs in a really safe and outward way i'm excited about just that for our kids versus how maybe some of us of adults have have struggled navigating all of that thank you any other questions or comments all right well thank you both very much [Music] so for me that uh concludes uh and i apologize for my personal question they've done a
176two-hour superintendent's report i really wanted to get the information and i knew there were some questions from our uh our community that rightfully even needed to be able to be able to address while um making sure that the community understood our vision and purpose for our both our academic and social services social uh emotional work moving forward absolutely i sincerely appreciate the presentations and think they have been uh really illuminating so um and we'll will likely end before 8pm anyways which is it's a good trend that we have going here so um all right uh we can move to review future agenda items our next meeting is july 26th and then on the 30th and 31st we have our trainings any questions or comments from the board on the future gender items or meeting dates
177the 26 is my birthday so can we keep that one in short too just kidding we can we'll do our best right i think we can try and honor that one or treats or do adults bring treats to me absolutely okay noted i think that's recommended any other questions comments i i just would comment on the the the correlation between trying to improve transparency and accountability and doing this work in a lot of these meetings that this is something that we recognize and and and want to be better at and you know these these uh coherence governance meetings are specifically designed um not just to help improve transparency but just communication and accountability as well and um how much i appreciate dr clarity's efforts and in bringing that group in but also the time that
178we're going to spend to do that um because i think it really is important yeah so absolutely and there's a unified commitment to that so i appreciate that other questions or comments no i'm glad john brought that up i think that's a huge point and i really think that um that will help the board serve our students in a much better way we have clear lines of communication clear expectations and that will be then translated into better outcomes for our students and clear communication to our communities i'm very pleased and i appreciate again dr clarity um taking the initiative to bring this critical work to the board immediately i think it's it's much needed and will be hugely helpful absolutely any other questions or comments all right so we can move on to committee reports
179uh cia has not met finance bgnt i guess that's me huh we have not met either thank you personal policy we have not met okay and with that i will accept a motion to adjourn is there a second second second from jen any less questions or comments before we vote i just wanted to add one last comment and my excitement of this amazing opportunity i forgot to also thank amy almond i did just want um to share a quick funny story as i was going door-to-door asking people for signatures i had no fewer than four people start to sign my paper and then pull their pen back and ask me if i was running against amy almond to which i then said no and they said okay now i'll sign your paper so i did
180just want to appreciate and thank her for all of her service because she is not only amazing but that is seen by her community and her peers so just wanted to add that in thanks nicole thank you i think this has been such a hectic meeting i mean we've had it's dr clarity's first meeting we have a board appointment and i think um i amy really we deserve to have a recognition of the huge amount of time amy has been just uh for people who do not know the amount of work that goes into what amy has done it is massive she has put in an extraordinary amount of time and work for the district for your children to the community for your children for years and years and years and this is um she
181we absolutely i think need to carve out some time at a future meeting because she deserves to be recognized and applauded and her um her dedication to this district has just left me absolutely um grateful because my child has been part of this district astounded at her dedication and just she's one that i will forever appreciate uh turning to because she is such a voice of reason and um compassion and brings um such a heart to her work uh at the board table and so she will be missed nicole we welcome you to you have the shoes to fill big shoes to fill um but amy deserves to have some time carved out so we can recognize her appropriately and this is a pretty crazy first meeting meredith i'm going to add to what you
182said so my my appreciation amy is so deep and when i think about her years on the board i think of our children because my daughter your son um and amy allman's daughter all graduated together and i said to amy wait a minute you've been on the board almost your daughter's entire life which is absolutely true because having an 18 year old i think maybe there were only two years of her daughter's life that she was not on the board when her daughter was a baby and toddler so i am immensely grateful to her and just in awe that someone steps up and you too nicole with such young children because i do remember saying when people asked would you run for school board no my kids aren't old enough yet i need to wait
183a little bit longer it's too hard to have three really young children and be on a school board and amy stepped up at a time when she had quite a young i mean her youngest was quite young so thank you so much to amy and yeah i hope we can honor her in the future future event or meeting time absolutely thank you all for your comments and certainly couldn't agree more so any other last comments or questions before we vote all right hearing none all those in favor please signify by eye any opposed and we are adjourned thank you all very much have a good night